The West High dance team has been preparing for its second year off the ground in various ways. This year’s dance team was formed through a tryout held April 26, 2024 and had a four day preparation to learn the expectations. During the four days, those trying out had to learn a small POM routine and hip hop routine, get a toe touch, front and side kick, jazz pirouette, and a unique trick ready for tryouts. The members of the 2024-25 dance team are Maggie Stepp, Emma Miracle, Abigail Snider, Anayska Pabon, Halie Anglin, Olivia Epps, and Leticia Gama with Cortney Stepp as their Coach.
The team started ordering uniforms and learning band dances for the sidelines of home football games during the summer. Practice days mostly varied through the summer and consisted of conditioning, strengthening, and learning dance routines for the upcoming year. Some of the dancers have a background in dance and some do not, so there was time made for getting familiar with technique and different dance styles. One of the dance team’s biggest preparations for the season was POM camp. Unfortunately, they were not able to participate in the official three day camp in Knoxville, but Stepp was able to design her own POM camp for the dance team members. The camp experience was very similar to what they would have done, and this ran from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for a consecutive three days. There was a dress like a superhero day, a dress like a Disney princess day, and an all black day. During the POM camp, the dance team conditioned, learned the dance the first two days, and sharpened each movement on the last day to be performance ready. Because of how expensive uniforms were, Stepp provided sponsorship forms for local businesses to help with fundraising and mum forms to sell flowers for the dance team members as well. Local businesses that help out would be announced at games and put on a t-shirt. This school year, the dance team practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week from 3:30 to 5 p.m. These practices consist of preparing for any home game that is coming up as well as learning new band dances and separate routines. Because the dance team is still getting on its feet, there is a lot of hard work and sacrifice put into each part of it in order to grow stronger as a team for more students to gain this opportunity in the future.
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